Speaking at a daily press briefing, UN Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said intense airstrikes and shelling on the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta have reportedly killed dozens of civilians and injured many more over the last 48 hours. The president of Syria Bashar-al-Assad in conjunction with the Russian Airforce and militias backed by Iran are pursuing military operations against the rebels in the last significant redoubts of the regions that have been in control of Assad's opponents in the western side of the country.

Russian Federation has waged a punishing aerial campaign against Syria's armed opposition since intervening in the civil war on the side of its ally, President Bashar Assad, in 2015.

Activists and rescue workers reported at least 28 civilians, including six children, were killed on Monday in Ghouta, where almost 40 airstrikes hit the suburb that is the last opposition stronghold in Damascus.

But reports on the ground suggest that Filipov was conducting airstrikes, which have been devastating Idlib since Russian Federation and the Syrian regime escalated bombing runs in the province in late December. At least eight residents remained missing when the search was suspended at nightfall, one rescuer said.

From Idlib, activists uploaded videos of bombed hospitals, including footage of newborn babies struggling to breathe after their incubators lost power.

He also said Turkish forces had finished building a sixth observation point in Syria's Idlib region. It said one of its workers was killed by an airstrike while attempting a rescue in the area. "We back it up as necessary with action", he said.

A separate investigative body, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry, found between March 2013 and March 2017 there were 25 documented incidents of chemical weapons use in Syria, 20 of which were perpetrated by the government and used primarily against civilians. "The people of Syria are suffering; the rest of the world is watching", the statement added. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the recent escalation has killed more than 400 civilians, including more than 100 children, in Eastern Ghouta.

"I'm speaking with a degree of caution because you have to be careful pending full documentation, but all the indications that we have show that at the moment chlorine is being used by the Syrian regime", Le Drian said.

Two boys collect tree branches to make fire wood in Kafar Batna village in Rural Damascus, Syria.

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